I’m wondering why you asked for permission when it was so clearly meant to be shared? Especially since you had no intention of letting her “deny” you access. If this was the case, a more appropriate introduction might simply have been “Hello.” It would never dawn on me to ask permission when approaching a “shared” area, be it a soda station or a restroom vanity.
By your own admission you had to share not only the table but the wrapping paper, tape and scissors. So you did, indeed, inconvenience her by barging onto her table. In the grand scheme of things, not a huge deal, but as you say, she was struggling to get her gift wrapped. Personally, I wonder why, upon seeing her struggle, you didn’t simply ask if she’d like some help. You know, show a little compassion to your fellow human being. THEN if she actled like a bitch you’d have every right to complain about it. But escalating the unpleasantness was surely a lose/lose situation for everyone. And being gleeful about your mutual unpleasantness, added to your comment that you get mildly annoyed “at all the shiny happy faces” makes me wonder just what kind of person you are.
OK. So the counter really was big enough to be used by 2 and it was meant to be ‘shared.’ You seem to be under the empression that there are only two options – be rude, or be “tromped on.” This is not the case at all. It is entirely possible to be both strong and polite.
In your position, I would have said, “May I share the counter?” and placed my box on the counter. When she snapped back that I could not share, I would have responded, “I believe you are mistaken. There is room here for more than one customer. I’m sure we are meant to share.” Then I would have quietly wrapped my package. If she had continued to insist that I leave the counter, I would have – still calmly – invited her to bring in a manager if she felt it was necessary – “I’m sure you are mistaken and that more than one customer at a time is meant to use this counter. Why don’t you call a manager and ask her about it?” If she kept on squawking, I would have – still calmly and quietly – continued to repeat variations of “I’m sure customers are meant to share this space.”
The end result would have been far more irritating to the rude woman than your responses were. Your responses proved her right – that you were a rude beotch horning in on her space – and gave her fuel to continue to harangue you. My responses would have left her with no ammunition – it’s very difficult to scream at someone who is responding to you quietly and calmly.
Finally, I have no doubt that your fellow shoppers found her rude and that they enjoyed watching you smack her down. That doesn’t make you a hero, though – it makes you half of a two-rude-women floor show. End result – you added to the rudeness in the world, you didn’t subtract from it.
And before you ask – yes, this is truly how I would have handled this situation. It is exactly how I have handled similar situations in my life. I am 45 and I have never been rude to a stranger in public ever – no, not even if they “started it.”. And I don’t allow myself to be “tromped on” either.
This is not always true. I’ve been working in customer service for the last 8 years. For the first 7 years I was exceedingly polite to everyone and returned rudeness with politeness. If someone was increasingly rude despite my politeness then I would go into sugary sweet politeness mode which just pisses them off more.
Then, I got a waitressing job. My tips depended on how much I pissed off the customers. In the beginning I was exceedingly polite. If a table bitched at me, even over one of their mistakes, I would apologize and fix the situation immediately. I always got shit tips from them and left the situation very annoyed and frustrated. After about of year of dealing with that bullshit I had had enough. A table was being exceedingly rude to me and the final straw came when I brought out their breads and one of them got annoyed because only one was garlic and she wanted both of them to be. Rather than simply asking for me to replace one with garlic she accused me of messing up the order saying “I know I asked for garlic.” No, bitch, you didn’t. I was fed up at that point so I looked her straight in the eye and said. “No, you didn’t. However, I will replace it for you.” I then took the plain bread and walked off. Rude as hell, of course! But it worked, she was nice to me for the rest of the meal and gave me a 20% tip. I had written the tip off, so it was a welcome surprise. Since then, I’ve realized that with some individuals you need to be rude to them in order to deal with them at a civilized level. If you are polite and admit mistakes that aren’t your own, they feel justified in walking all over you. They give you a smaller tip because they feel that you were responsible. On the other hand, if you stand up to them, they realize that they were being a bitch and feel bad about it.
Again, “standing up to” someone isn’t rude. kimera, your comment to your customer wasn’t rude at all, let alone ‘rude as hell.’ Rude as hell would have been, “Look, you fucking liar. You didn’t order any garlic bread. I’ll bring you some because I have to, not because I want to, you cross-eyed crotch-sniffer.” If you’d truly been rude as hell, you wouldn’t have gotten a tip, I’m sure.
I suspect you think that etiquette required you to gush. But, being gushingly friendly (“Oh, I’m so sorry! Stupid me – you’re right! I forgot your garlic bread. I’ll never forgive myself!”) wouldn’t have been appropriate in this circumstance. And, your customer may have taken this as an admission of guilt on your part and reflected that in your tip.
What you said, was courteous but cool – and perfectly polite. And it worked. As you say, it made the customer realize he was being a prick (“Gee. I was a bit sharp with the waitress. She’s obviously irritated, but still professional… Well, I’ll take this into account when I leave the tip.”). You couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.
I found the OP pretty baseless and offensive as well. It reads like “ghetto girl goes to town, attempts to kick some ass, sticks it to da man.”
There is nothing more classless than someone that escalates a fight to higher levels of despicability in public. Like others have said, that never means that you don’t stick up for yourself. It is just that you can always be as firm as you need to be by keeping it subtle. It is a learned art and I suggest the OP take some lessons.
Not the OP, but I find Jess’s solution to be rude–though obviously you think you are behaving above reproach. Some people don’t take too kindly to being treated like children, which is definately the vibe your approach gives me. And, to be honest, I’m not in the business of raising unknown people to be productive members of society or to get along with others. But then again, I was raised by wolves–what do I know.
Oh, no . . . I can see now where you might have thought I meant that-- I was just saying you see this* more often *in places frequented by people with money. (A cruise, for instance, or an expensive resturant.)
It doesn’t help that the description of the other woman’s conversation lacks specifics, limited to “ramble, ramble, bitch, bitch”, “She wouldn’t shut up”, and “She continued to moan”. It’s not clear the other woman said anything offensive, just that the OP took offense at it.
Well, I model my etiquette advice on Miss Manners’ usually and I know she would have found my method to be above reproach. Many people find Miss Manners to be pretentious and didactic, so you’re probably not alone in your feelings. Personally, I don’t consider my example to be either of these things – at least not excessively so, but I respect your disagreement.
To be completely truthful, though, I probably would not follow through on the advice I gave if I were ever in the OP’s shoes. Thinking about it a bit more I realise that, in the OP’s place, I probably would have just dropped back and waited until the woman was done with her wrapping. I’m generally non-confrontational and wouldn’t have considered this a big enough deal to make even a polite fuss over. Then, when the woman moved away from the counter, I’d have stepped up to it and said, to the others waiting, “Come on, I think there’s room for two or three here.” And I confess I’d have tried to say it quickly (and loudly) enough for the nasty woman to hear me as she left.
I may be missing something, but I don’t see Jess’s solution as treating anyone like a child. It’s not like she’d give the woman a lecture on the virtues of sharing or anything else. She’d just state her belief about how the table worked and give the woman the option of calling in the manager if she felt otherwise.
Exactly. If there were three of everything (tape, paper, etc.) I would assume it’s fine to just go ahead and wrap my package and be done with it.
I’m confused on why you have to use the store’s wrapping paper to prove that you chose from the registry. Isn’t the fact that the item matches one on the registry proof enough? Or do you have to establish evidence that you shopped at the chi-chi store?
Sorry, but I call hypocrisy on those of you lambasting the OP. If you say you’ve never wanted to verbally beat down someone who was being rude to you, and later regretted it when you didn’t, I won’t believe you. RSSchen had the guts to do it. I say, Bravo.
I wanted to a lot of things. I have even done some of them. It still doesn’t make it right or something to be commended. It was tacky and classless to the extreme.
Haven’t you ever been in a store where some piece of trash goes on a tear and starts escalating fights? Kids, fellow shoppers, and helpless employees get exposed to that nonsense. It is needlessly stressful for everyone.
The OP should stay out of nicer stores if she just wants to scrap like they do in the hood.
Excuse me, but how DARE you compare me to “some piece of trash” or saying that I live in the “hood”. My stores of choice are Macy’s, Nordstrom, Williams- Sonoma and my newest fave, the Coach store.
I nod to Jess’s hypothetic solution to the problem. You’re right, I really need’nt ask to use public domain. The store had the sense to put out THREE of each of the implements to be used, so she was gonna use the scissors with her feet, no? On approach I was trying to be friendly, with a smile and everything. When I go out in public I tend to be painfully aware of how I appear. I consciously put a smile on my face; make friendly comments to fellow shoppers (such as if I’ve had a bad experience with whatever they’re looking at); and am quite apologetic if I perhaps infringe upon them. I’m actually quite gracious. When she smacked me down, I went into overdrive. I guess it must be that the years of being subjected to the decline in consideration finally popped a blood vessel.
Shag, I’m especially hurt because by-and-by I’ve always enjoyed your posts. Even looked for you in threads. This display is IMO uncharacteristic and thoroughly insulting.
If what I said was inaccurate, then I humbly and sincerely apologize. It is just that I have an aversion to those types of fights in public. I have had to deal with them many times when I worked service type jobs. More recently someone tried to start one with me when I had my 3 year old daughter with me.
Besides causing problems for other people, it almost always isn’t the way to the best results.
Again, I was merely coming down hard on an image of the situation. It had little to do with you as a person.
I’m confused - first you make a point of mentioning how " when clearly mid/upper class people are just so shitty, they need to be called on it." Then, when asked about this throwaway comment, you respond sarcastically with, “Shame on me for assuming that a woman laden in jewels and Gucci sunglasses should have been considerate. In fact, in retrospect, that should’a been the tipper.” Now you blow a fuse because someone assumes from your previous anti-upper-middle-class comments that you are not upper-class yourself. I don’t know what conclusion to draw - that you hate the upper-middle class, or that you are upper-middle class.
RSSChen, when you find that nice middle ground between “being subjected to the decline in consideration” and “popping a blood vessel,” you will find the most empowering strength.
You have to make sure that you are treated fairly and you have to treat others fairly too. You stand up for yourself, but you do it with respect for the other person.
Think about the really strong women you have known in your life and how their strength seems to come from within. It’s almost as if they have roots.
Actually I kind of know the feeling, I grew up on the poor side, lower middle Class and I feel weird being upper middle Class now. I kind of feel a slight guilt of something . I think I sympathize more with the class I grew up in than the class I am in now. My Parents actually grew up poor, so I know they are proud of the fact that all 4 kids have climbed the class ladder.
. I think I sympathize more with the class I grew up in than the class I am in now. My Parents actually grew up poor, so I know they are proud of the fact that all 4 kids have climbed the class ladder.